Project Focus

Conexions Peninsula Permaculture: Abundance in Action, strives to reach a diverse group of people, including low-income communities, presenting permaculture as a solution-based approach to social justice issues. Permaculture, by definition, is about care of the Earth, care of the people and returning the surplus. As we contribute to a lasting legacy of caring for the Earth, Peninsula Permaculture is creating real, tangible examples of how all beings can flourish together.

Peninsula Permaculture promotes regenerative design, renewable energy and care for local resources by creating living examples intended to bring these concepts to the forefront of people’s actions and awareness. Our goal is to identify, understand, and document the most efficient and effective means to perpetuate regenerative living skills locally in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, building upon existing examples and knowledge.  The resultant projects can then be replicated around the globe.

Permaculture design principles are based in the ethic of taking responsibility for our own existence and promote community self-sufficiency by offering solutions and alternatives to the current reliance on industrial non-renewable systems of production and distribution. We develop educational materials, offer mentoring opportunities & workshops, work with community groups and link with regional and global permaculture projects to learn from and help foster permaculture.

Community Initiatives

Earth Action Mentor is a community collaborative dedicated to furthering permaculture principles and practices. EarthActionMentor.org is a permaculture training hub which documents regenerative living skills and practices worldwide.  The website provides lessons, short videos, interviews with earth mentors, an independent study curriculum, workbooks, case studies, research papers, a community forum and documentation of county permitted regenerative technologies. All of the lessons can be applied immediately to your own backyard, farm or community.

Earth Action Training is an independent study curriculum that guides students through an intensive study of how permaculture can be applied to their own backyard, farm or community. This curriculum is designed to provide college credit. The curriculum will be accessible through Earth Action Mentor.

Peninsula Permaculture Community Guild  is a local community permaculture guild with an online networking presence on Wiser Earth. Peninsula Permaculture will work with guild members to define individual visions and goals and offer mentoring in areas where guild members need support. We will document these visions and practices to provide an example of action in the areas of regenerative design, policy change, and community awareness.

Programs

Permitting Assistance for Regenerative Technologies is a program to promote policy change in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties in the areas of regenerative technology  Peninsula Permaculture will provide support for people to get through the county permitting process and will work to provide the research for these regenerative technologies. Our goal is to make technologies such as grey water systems, composting toilets without septic systems, natural building, and other regenerative technologies common and permitted practices in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. We will partner with committed members of the community who are looking to permit these regenerative technologies. Peninsula Permaculture would like to offer consulting services as well as documentation of the process for others to follow by example. As we work with committed members of the community, the entire process, associated costs and outcomes will be documented on Earth Action Mentor.

Ultimate Land Base - Peninsula Permaculture is working toward procuring a long-term lease arrangement in San Mateo or Santa Clara county for our ultimate land base to create a comprehensive permaculture demonstration site where all resources necessary for a community to thrive are included or within close proximity to the site.

Workshops are our way of providing local training in regenerative design and skills.  Peninsula Permaculture offers these workshops:

• Permaculture Design Course: In this 72-hour intensive design course, you will acquire the tools needed to create a sustainable future in your backyard and beyond. These tools can be applied to any scale, from dense urban settlements to vast rangeland.
• Waking Waters: In this series of three workshops geared toward educating the mind and body, you learn the modern context of the hydrologic cycle, which has created the need for widespread water harvesting on the home scale. We will study as well as get hands-on experience in roof water catchment, integrated site design for harvesting rain water in the landscape, and explore other possibilities for water harvesting and biofiltration on the small scale.
• Carbon Farming Workshop: Soil, Water and Carbon for every farm.  This one-day workshop will describe how you can improve your soils and increase the ability to harvest rainwater where it falls using a range of integrated regenerative agriculture techniques such as Keyline Design, Holistic Management, Soil Food Web, Integrated Agroforestry and other carbon farming strategies.
• Earth Action Mentor Call Series: These 1-hour calls are a great chance for you to get familiar with or refresh your permaculture breadth of understanding.  As we talk with experienced mentors in the permaculture movement we will find out what the pressing issues on their minds are and how are they are incorporating solutions to those issues into their projects.